"My bike has no brakes and just one gear. But I'm pedaling with all I've got, tucked and spinning, breathing hard. Hands clenched on drop bars. Wheels humming. Thighs screaming. Knuckles literally white."

Thus starts my story on the NSC Velodrom, a 250-meter wood bike track where banks provide a medium for riders to pedal laps at the natural lean of a bike, eliminating skidding and defying gravity in the process. This is my story about trust, inertia, speed, centrifugal force and faith in physics the first time I rolled onto the track. . .